Getting SEO Value from rel="nofollow" Links - Whiteboard Friday

The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

Plenty of websites that make it easy for you to contribute don't make it easy to earn a followed link from those contributions. While rel=nofollow links reign in the land of social media profiles, comments, and publishers, there's a few ways around it. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand shares five tactics to help you earn equity-passing followed links using traditionally nofollow-only platforms.

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Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat about how you can get SEO value from nofollowed links. So in the SEO world, there are followed links. These are the normal ones that you find on almost every website. But then you can have nofollowed links, which you’ll see in the HTML code of a website. You will see the normal thing is a href=somewebsite in here. If you see this rel=nofollow, that means that the search engines — Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. — will not count this link as passing link equity, at least certainly not in the same way that a followed link would.

So when you see these, you can see them by looking in the source code yourself. You could turn on the MozBar and use the "Show nofollow links" on the Page button and see these.

What sort of links use rel=nofollow?

But the basic story is that you're not getting the same SEO value from them. But there are ways to get it. Recently you might have seen in the SEO news world that Inc. and Forbes and a few other sites like them, last year it was Huffington Post, started applying nofollow tags to all the links that belong to articles from contributors. So if I go and write an article for Inc. today, the links that I point out from my bio and my snippet on there, they're not going to pass any value, because they have this nofollow applied.

A) Social media links (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)

There are a bunch of types of links use this. Social media, so Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, which is one of the reasons why you can't just boost your linked profile by going to these places and leaving a bunch of links around.

B) Comments (news articles, blogs, forums, etc.)

Comments, so from news articles or blogs or forums where there's discussion, Q&A sites, those comments, all the links in them that you leave again nofollowed.

C) Open submission content (Quora, Reddit, YouTube, etc.)

Open submission content, so places like Quora where you could write a post, or Reddit, where you could write a post, or YouTube where you could upload a video and have a post and have a link, most of those, in fact almost all of them now have nofollows as do the profile links that are associated. Your Instagram account, for example, that would be a social media one. But it's not just the pictures you post on Instagram. Your profile link is one of the only places in the Instagram platform where you actually get a real URL that you can send people to, but that is nofollowed on the web.

Some publishers now with these less stringent publishing review systems, so places like Inc., Forbes, BuzzFeed in some cases with their sponsored posts, Huffington Post, LinkedIn's Pulse platform, and a bunch of others all use this rel=nofollow.

Basic evaluation formula for earning followed links from the above sources

The basic formula that we need to go to here is: How do you contribute to all of these places in ways that will ultimately result in followed links and that will provide you with SEO value? So we're essentially saying I'm going to do X. I know that's going to bring a nofollowed link, but that nofollowed link will result in this other thing happening that will then lead to a followed link.

Do X → Get rel=nofollow link → Results in Y → Leads to followed link

5 examples/tactics to start

This other thing happening can be a bunch of different things. It could be something indirect. You post something with your site on one of these places. It includes a nofollow link. Someone finds it. We'll just call this guy over here, this is our friendly editor who works for a publication and finds it and says, "Hmm, that link was actually quite useful," or the information it pointed to was useful, the article was useful, your new company seems useful, whatever it is. Later, as that editor is writing, they will link over to your site, and this will be a followed link. Thus, you're getting the SEO value. You've indirectly gained SEO value essentially through amplification of what you were sharing through your link.

Google likes this. They want you to use all of these places to show stuff, and then they're hoping that if people find it truly valuable, they'll pick it up, they'll link to it, and then Google can reward that.

So some examples of places where you might attempt this in the early stages. These are a very small subset of what you could do, and it's going to be different for every industry and every endeavor.

1. Quora contributions

But Quora contributions, especially those if you have relevant or high value credentials or very unique, specific experiences, that will often get picked up by the online press. There are lots of editors and journalists and publications of all kinds that rely on interesting answers to Quora questions to use in their journalism, and then they'll cite you as a source, or they'll ask you to contribute, they'll ask you for a quote, they'll point to your website, all that kind of stuff.

2. Early comments on low-popularity blogs

Early comments especially in, I know this is going to sound odd, but low-popularity blogs, rather than high-popularity ones. Why low popularity? Because you will stand out. You're less likely to be seen as a spammer, especially if you're an authentic contributor. You don't get lost in the noise. You can create intrigue, give value, and that will often lead to that writer or that blogger picking you up with followed links in subsequent posts. If you want more on this tactic, by the way, check out our Whiteboard Friday on comment marketing from last year. That was a deep dive into this topic.

3. Following and engaging with link targets on Twitter

Number three, following and engaging with your link targets on Twitter, especially if your link targets are heavily invested in Twitter, like journalists, B2B bloggers and contributors, and authors or people who write for lots of different publications. It doesn't have to be a published author. It can just be a writer who writes for lots of online pieces. Then sharing your related content with them or just via your Twitter account, if you're engaging with them a lot, chances are good you can get a follow back, and that will lead to a lot of followed up links with a citation.

4. Link citations from Instagram images

Instagram accounts. When you post images on Instagram, if you use the hashtags — hashtag marketing is kind of one of the only ways to get exposure on Instagram — but if you use hashtags that you know journalists, writers, editors, and publications of any kind in your field are picking up and need, especially travel, activities, current events, stuff that's in the news, or conferences and events, many times folks will pick up those images and ask you for permission to use them. If you're willing to give it, you can earn link citations. Another important reason to associate that URL with your site so that people can get in touch with you.

5. Amplify content published on your site by republishing on other platforms

If you're using some of these platforms that are completely nofollow or platforms that are open contribution and have follow links, but where we suspect Google probably doesn't count them, Medium being one of the biggest places, you can use republishing tactics. So essentially you're writing on your own website first. Writing on your own website first, but then you are republishing on some of these other places.

I'm going to go Forbes. I'm going to publish my column on Forbes. I'm going to go to Medium. I'm going to publish in my Medium account. I'm going to contribute Huffington Post with the same piece. I'm republishing across these multiple platforms, and essentially you can think of this as it's not duplicate content. You're not hurting yourself, because these places are all pointing back to your original. It's technically duplicate content, but not the kind that's going to be bothersome for search engines.

You're essentially using these the same way you would use your Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn, where you are pushing it out as a way to say, "Here, check this out if you're on these platforms, and here's the original back here." You can do that with the full article, just like you would do full content in RSS or full content for email subscribers. Then use those platforms for sharing and amplification to get into the hands of people who might link later.

So nofollowed links, not a direct impact, but potentially a very powerful, indirect way to get lots of good links and lots of good SEO value.

All right, everyone, hope you've enjoyed this edition of Whiteboard Friday, and we'll see you again next week. Take care.

I think the introduction of the rel="nofollow" attribute has been a negative influence overall. As I recall, before it came along the advice from Google/SEO'ers was limit the number of external links on any one page to approx 100; publishers weren't too paranoid about this. Now the tendancy is to "ring-fence" your own content, nofollow your external links and supposedly protect your rankings. Yet from what I've seen there is real value in providing external links to related, good quality, content on other sites. Such pages seem to attract higher than average levels of interest from Googlebot. This implies to me that the absence of nofollow gives Google the confidence to effectively "connect" the content from both sites, and I suspect your own page gets a vote of confidence/authority for doing so. I generally only add rel="nofollow" on affiliate or sponsored links and leave anything else open; keeping the number on any one page to a few relevant links.

Hi Rand, love this topic. I always wonder why people are focusing too much on follow links despite knowing the importance of quality links. As far as quality is concerned, we will see most of the quality sites that provide link opportunity are Nofollow. These days I found popular platforms like Quora and Medium are largely being used by marketers and audience both to share their thoughts. This can also lead to brand awareness, increased traffic, build relationship and many other benefits already mentioned in the post. So the chance to get a followed link back is quite high.

I remember and agreed with the statement said by Jason Lancaster - “Nofollow" isn't a rule - it's just a guide. So the overall thing that matters is the linking sites quality and the quality of site being linked.

The issue is, from the very beginning of our SEO career, we have been molded in a way to pick "follow" links over "nofollow" links for the ranking benefit that comes along with them. Of course, there is a ranking benefit with 'follow' links - there is no denial to that, but I believe a link (coming from a quality source) is much more than just a 'ranking benefit'.

A link gives us (and our business) more exposure, a number of people come to know about us, more prospective clients, more referral traffic, indirect benefits (as mentioned by you in detail here), more engagements, etc. I think we should value a link from its quality perspective, and not just from the tag (follow/nofollow) associated with it.

Praveen.. It's about to get value from our "nofollow" links. You are giving value a link from its quality perspective,It's great, But if you have some "nofollow" links from quality sites, then why you're not getting the SEO value from them? What is wrong with this?

Great WBF. When we take the time to contribute to high profile sites and they all wind up being nofollow it is frustrating so I appreciate the perspective on how they can indirectly add value.

A Couple of Questions:

Have you ever had success asking someone to turn a nofollow link into a follow link?

If so, what specific tactic did you use to accomplish this?

When you say contribute to Quora with "relevant credentials" do you mean it looks good if I am a frequent contributor or if I have a respected title such as being a Doctor contributing to a health question?

As a publisher that adds 100s of new articles a day, often from 3rd party sources, we had to do the same and add nofollow to all external links. There's no other choice, you simply can't control so many links.

At the same time the idea of allowing followed links to a predefined list of domains has been on my mind for a while.

Editors are now using nofollow links more and more often, and in fact, something we see a lot these days in PR with citations is editors who are not even allowing links anymore, but only a mention of the domain name.

The first thing you mentioned Rand is super important. Make sure to check who else is syndicating / quoting from your article, as often requiring a followed link from them is much easier.

Last, and even if not directly related to getting followed links as a result, nofollowed links still lead people to get to know you and search for your brand name. No need to elaborate on the importance of branded searches I guess, especially for relatively new sites.

In short, external links pass "link juice". By giving other domains external links, I also tell Google who I trust, and share that "link juice" with (I hate that word, but OK).

When you work with many different sources, and publish 1000s of articles every week, you can't really control every single link these articles contain. And that's why I prefer to nofollow all external links from these articles.

On top of that when we have a general policy of nofollow links, I know that writers aren't sharing their articles with us only for the followed links, so that discussion is out of the question with contributors.

As usual The Whiteboard Friday is a hit, for me the link building is by far the most time consuming task on seo, casually this week I have been researching how to become useful all the nofollow links that already have in my sites and this post gave me some useful ideas.

Thanks for the very important post shared in the SEO world. Do Follow Links help to increase ranking if you work on Page Ranks 2-10, No Follow Links are really important is true there is not a big juice you get from no follow but helps to refer traffic to your website. I am sharing your webpage on my circles. Thank you!

Its a good takeaway considering the Google stringent rules coming up each day. Getting a nofollow link ain't tough but getting it from good authority sites is still difficult. So I have a small query; if i get 10 good high quality link backs from say 50 DA websites out of which 8 are no-followed ones, so will that benefit in near term in terms of traffic, increased DA and brand authority?

I must be asking something stupid question but it might matter to many.

What do you think about republishing content on Linked In? The links you get there are no-follow as well. Also, how do you republish content on Forbes and the HuffPost? That is new to me, I didn't know these sites would allow you to do that.

Great article, i really enjoyed it. Especially the last point about using some of these platforms as social media sharing after publishing on your own site. I though immediately this would create duplicate content issues but like you said not bothersome if your linking back to your original peace.

Hello There!I mostly like you point "What sort of links use rel=nofollow?". I am doing there fro better result in my blog post search engine ranking. By auditing you topic which I highlighted I am more clearing about it.

Whenever I found WBF's post in my email box I feel glad and saying "Yeah!! this is not White Board Friday, It's actually Wonderful Blessed Friday.

At my experience, actually getting links from authority website is very helpful for our website, It doesn't matter whether the links are follow or nofollow. though they can't pass link juice, but, they pass traffic to our website. Same as you talked about commenting system in past WBF's post, almost everywhere on web you found nofollow in comments, but, they are still healthy for getting targeted traffic.

So, in my point of view, nofollow links are also useful for our website same as follow links, not equally but not useless.

As long as links will give value to the readers whether it is nofollow or follow, it will be considered as Valuable.

As we hear that the links comes from Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc are now nofollow but somehow links are helping readers to know more about products / services and brand awareness that is indirectly impacts SEO.

Recently I wrote a blog & then decided to use the tactic of guest posting for it. I posted my 50% of the content on guest posting sites such as LinkedIn, Medium, YourStory etc. & then I applied backlink for my site.

Is it beneficial for my site?

Is it a Ranking factor? what are your opinion regarding this.

I regularly follow your WhiteBoard & one thing I noticed that your articles are always informative but the readability of the site is poor. Can you improve the design of your website? If you don't mind!

Totally valid video and an some clever tactics, but one thing deserves elaboration. When you say "the basic story is that you're not getting the same SEO value from them."

That's true, but that's a pretty important story that I feel like is going to be mostly misinterpreted here.

One of my tests of hiring an SEO is whether or not the believe that nofollow has no value. It's one of the greatest SEO myths. It tells me whether they test and think for themselves, or just accept every Google blog or SEO clickbait headline at face value.

There are 3 reasons that I care about nofollow links.

Read any old Matt Cutts post about nofollow's initial announcement carefully, and you can see how cautious he is with his words. He clarified that "nofollow does not mean nocount". It may not pass pagerank, but pagerank is not the only measure of link value.

No/low % of nofollow links would be an unnatural footprint. I know you (Rand) understand this, because I you were preaching "work towards Google of tomorrow, not today", advocating white hat even when it simply didn't work. If Google wants to model popularity and relevance as it occurs offline (like I believe they do), they don't get there by ignoring most of the links that a popular brand would naturally attract. And they won't be fooled by those that manage to sculpt all nofollows out of their link portfolio.

Since #1/#2 are just theory, this is the most significant - has anybody here gotten a link from Wikipedia lately? The value is still enormous. It's only correlation, but you can test this one in a vacuum. Make it the only link that goes to a brand new site. See how fast it's accepted into the index and ranked vs. not. It's impossible to ignore.

The truth is that this has been the result of the many abuses that existed before Google took these steps. However, I now believe that people are afraid to put follow tags and place almost everything rel = "nofollow", having some SEO analyses that show that it is positive to link to the follow attribute.

Anyway, the good thing about a link is not in itself the transfer of authority, but it brings a real traffic to your website and the users then stay, return, share your content... For example wikipedia always links "nofollow", but attracts a significant amount of traffic to the website that has been linked.

Great post explaining the value of nofollow links. I am quite active on Quora and have already got over 88,000 answer views. Answering questions also helps you in knowing first hand what topics your potential audience is interested in, also you can use it as social proof of your knowledge in that field. Besides that you can also drive traffic by the "nofollow" links to your website

Great topic Rand, as usual! I've noticed that the effect of the no-follow links can vary of the anchor text as well. If the anchor text is branded to you (or your website/product/service etc.) it can lift the number of visitors to your site and actually can have a beneficial affect to your domain authority. Nevertheless you gain more exposure to an audience which maybe never heard before of you.

Great WBF. I love that this WBF continues to highlight the idea that well promoted content is content that will eventually earn links and we need to do more to create actual connections with others before we can expect to get high quality links to our content.

Engaging with others is truly the best way to rise above the noise and nonsense, but my concern is it doesn't scale easily and is difficult to do as an agency for many, many clients.

Is this type of 2-step link building best done by in-house marketers or should SEO agencies be doing more public relations style campaigns, cultivating media relations to eventual get those quality backlinks for their portfolio of clients?

There's always value in a link, as you've said. I'm currently trying to get published on those big magazines but it's really a struggle. From the tactics you've mentioned, I think it's the best one. Thanks! Cheers, Martin

I am glad actually that there are nofollow tags. It ended up the crazy link building techniques that use to send users to irrelevant "SEO friendly" pages with massive amount of backlinks. Nowadays, you can trust links between websites, and be sure that content on links followed will be relevant. Nofollow only filter websites with poor content. I recently started a new content marketing strategy, and even if Quora sends nofollow, I get decent traffic from users I helped.

The truth is that many times you go to the list where you know that the links are dofollow and it turns out that with the passage of the days these have modified to nofollow or that they have even disappeared.

We will follow these tips ... Whatever it takes to have more quality links with the dofollow attribute.

Hi! Thank you for the post. I started working for a company out of college that does Website Design and SEO. For every site they built, they put a link at the bottom of the client website (if the client approved) and linked it back to our site. For a while, this was probably good, but now, I'm thinking that it's not. I initially did some research a while back and found that it wouldn't hurt our site, but using nofollow would be a best practice (John Mueller in a Google Hangout I think.) I went through all of our links and removed them if the websites were outdated or utilized outdated SEO practices, and I put rel=nofollow tags on the links that stayed.

Do you think it would be best to just remove our links from all of the sites? At times, it seems to populate our branded search results with some of our clients, because Google recognizes our name in the footer. To me, the links aren't benefiting us, they're creating issues in our branded search results, and if anything it just seems spammy to Google. I initially had the concern that when they were all removed, there would be a negative rankings fluctuation, but I'm thinking it may not do anything, or may even help.

I would really appreciate your opinion on this if you have a few minutes, Rand. Anyone else in the Moz community as well!!

Thanks Rand, another useful one. We've been saying for a long time that lot of these methods are dead for direct SEO influence. However, if used correctly they can be fantastic relationship builders. We've earned many a guest post and influencer support though carefully crafted comments and thoughtful debate in forums.

Rand, Great WBF
and thanks for sharing your insights. Nofollowed links are really important to
get SEO value. The biggest example we have Quora and medium all the backlinks
from these sites are nofollow but we can easily drive traffic by these
"nofollow" links to our website.

We have been getting requests for republishing articles but have been hesitant to do so b because of fear of getting penalized by search engines. It's a good data point that you don't think there is a penalty so I'll start investigating this more. I have found that most of the people asking for contributed content are willing to put in an author bio that does contain a do follow link. In addition to the exposure from the articles, you can get do follow links from the bio.

Yeah, I'm completely agree with you like Quora is the quality source to getting backlinks and even conversions! But I didn't get the point commenting on low popular blogs. Those are new so obviously their DA/PA is kind of very low compare to your blog. So, how can we get quality backlinks from it? No doubt, they will give you dofollow but I think quality matters. What you say?

Quora has always been a huge help in generating traffic for multiple businesses I've worked on, and over time I've received tens of thousands of views and thousands of upvotes.

I also discovered a neat little trick of searching to see what search terms my customers may be looking for on google, and then asking and answering a question on Quora that can divert that traffic towards my own page. This is alongside the really low cost advertising I've gotten with them, it really is one of my favourite tools for traffic generation.